ENCHANTING HERKIMER DIAMOND HUNTS

COLLECTING DOUBLY TERMINATED QUARTZ CRYSTALS AND MAKING MEMORIES

- ANTOINETTE RAHN

Do you remember the moment you fell in love, and it honestly changed your life? Ed Halleran of Herkimer, New York certain does. It was 1983, he was in his early 30s, and it was a photograph of something he could only describe as “incredibly beautiful.” The picture’s subject was a Herkimer diamond, and Halleran was not only hooked, but he was smitten.

“I’ve seen a lot of things in my 68 years, but I still have never seen anything quite like the first sign of a Herkimer diamond as it’s coming out of the ground,” Halleran said.

To say he’s seen a lot may even be a bit of an understatement. As a military veteran, former owner and operator of a restaurant specializing in pizza, over-theroad truck driver through which he earned membership in the national Milion-Mile Driver club, owner of thoroughbred horses, a husband, father, and rockhound, that’s a lot of roles in which to gain life experience.

Each step in the journey has had its purpose, even if he didn’t know it at the time, Halleran recalled. Now, after more than 30 years, he’s revisiting — in a big way — that early love, Herkimer diamonds.

For the past several decades, he’s had a staggering collection of Herkimer specimens of a variety of shapes and colors, sitting in the basement of his home. To quantify staggering” it’s estimated to be 1.5 million carats of double terminated quartz crystals. The crystals are named after a location where they are found, Herkimer County, New York and the surrounding area. However, New York is not the only place to find these quartz crystals. Examples have been discovered in Arizona, Norway, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine, among other locales.